PITTSBURGH -- Authorities moved an alleged cult leader from Western Penitentiary to a central Pennsylvania prison following discovery of a plot to free him through a sewer.
George Feigley, 43, a convicted rapist described as a charismatic leader of a semi-religious cult, was taken Friday to the Huntingdon State Correctional Institution, 105 miles east of Pittsburgh, state corrections officials said.
The transfer was made after police found escape tools allegedly left behind in a sewer near Western Penitentiary by Laura Seligman and James Gilbert, identified by authorities as followers of Feigley who were killed last week when rainwater swept them into the Ohio River.
No charges were filed against Feigley, who denied any knowledge of the escape plot. State police said they planned to interview other members of the cult about the case.
The bodies of Ms. Seligman, 26, and Gilbert, 27, of Marianna, were found in the river. Officials had believed the two drowned Monday while searching the mile-long drain for valuables.
Authorities later learned, however, the couple were friends of Feigley and they began searching the drain the morning of July 29.
The search uncovered shovels, crowbars, ropes, wrenches, a chain winch, two large batteries and a long wire, apparently to have been used for communication, authorities said.
Feigley, in prison since 1978 on a 10- to 20-year sentence for statutory rape, allegedly tried to escape twice from other prisons.
Authorities said he is called 'master' by members of a cult based in a farmhouse in Marianna, Washington County, and comprised mostly of women.
Feigley once ran the Neo-American Church School in Harrisburg, which officials called a 'cult-like operation.' The cult included some 600 members in the 1970s.
Prosecutors at the time said Feigley had a magnetic personality and would lure young girls into sex acts under the guise of religious teaching.
